David Pirrò

Austria (residence), Germany, Italy (citizenship) °1978

affiliation: Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics, Graz, Austria

en

David Pirrò (*1978 Udine, Italy), is a sound artist and researcher based in Graz, Austria. His works include interactive compositions and sound installations as well as audiovisual and electroacoustic pieces in which performative and spatial aspects are central. Departing from a radical inclusive point of view, he seeks ways of composing by which the work of art is constructed through mutual interaction of the agents involved in its performance.

David studied piano at the Conservatory "J. Tomadini". In 2004 he obtained the Master degree in Theoretical Physics at the University of Triest. In 2005 he worked at the CSC (Center for Computational Sonology) in Padua wih Prof. De Poli. in 2007 David concluded his studies at the Conservatory "G. Tartini" in Triest with a Master in Computer Music and audio-visual composition.

Since 2007 David works at the IEM (Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics) in Graz, Austria as lecturer and researcher. He collaborates in various scientific and artistic research projects on sonification ("QCD-audio", "An Acoustic Interface for tremor analysis"), sound spatialisation ("The Choreography of Sound") interaction design in Computer Music ("Embodied Generative Music", "Klangräume"). He writes his dissertation Thesis in Computer Music (tutor Prof. Gerhard Eckel) "Composing Interaction".

research expositions (collaborated)

The Bureau for Artistic Data Exploration (b-a-d-e) in collaboration with the Lansner Lab, Computational Neuroscience and Neurocomputing research group at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, as part of Transpositions [TP], an artistic research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund.

The research project investigates the possibility of generating new auditory and visual forms based on the analysis and mathematical transformation of scientific data. In addition, the project studies whether and how these new forms are of scientific significance by asking the collaborating researchers to scientifically analyze the artistic outputs. By remaining true to the data while employing an artistic working method and, thus, by combining scientific and artistic values, the project contributes to the conceptual development of a space for research that is shared between art and science. This, however, implies that during the project both scientists and artists will be challenged to work in ways that are unfamiliar to them, either through confrontation with complex artistic interpretations of data or through exposure to very specific scientific working methods. On a meta-level, the project will report on the types of interactions that are deemed to be of value to either the artists, the scientists or both.
At present, scientists use a variety of sonification and visualization procedures to analyse and communicate their findings. For artists, those representations are often of little artistic value since they are geared towards a transparent communication of the data creating little space for artistic interventions. Conversely, by foregrounding aesthetic effects, the expanding field of artistic data sonification and visualization runs the risk of producing art works that only superficially related back to the scientific research from which the data originated. While giving the arts an important role in the communication of scientific activity, the artistic exploration of scientific data may thus add very little to the research itself. Given the ever-increasing amount and importance of data representations, it is of particular importance that artists become engaged with their fabrication and to identify how in spite of their very different constitution aesthetic and epistemic research aims may support each other.
Three case studies from different scientific fields provide data to be transposed by the artists into artistic outputs, which are in turn analysed by the scientists. The artists have an established practice in music composition and visual art, respectively, and have been collaborating very productively for the last 3 years. Given the transdisciplinary nature of the artistic collaboration it is possible to investigate issues of intermediality not only between art and science but also from within the arts. The process of creation and analysis is continuously exposed on the Research Catalogue online platform while a number of performances/exhibitions make the outputs tangible to the scientists and the general public.

works (collaborated)

Event: Performance, Jacobs University, Bremen, artist(s)/author(s): Michael Schwab, David PirròTranspositions is a collaborative research project that investigates the possibility of generating new auditory and visual forms based on the analysis and mathematical transformation of scientific data. For this occasion, we will present a four-channel audio and video walk through a data set provided by the Computational Neuroscience and Neurocomputing research group at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, which models large-scale biological neuronal networks in order to investigate memory processes. By remaining true to the data while employing an artistic working method will we seek to create alternative encounters with potentialities inherent in the data that are not yet accounted for.
Transpositions is supported by the Austrian Science Fund.

Art object: Visualisation, artist(s)/author(s): David Pirrò, Gerhard Eckel, Michael SchwabThis is the first visualisation of a dynamic system as part of Case Study One (Neuro) of the research project Transpositions.

Event: Conference, artist(s)/author(s): Gerhard Eckel, Michael Schwab, David PirròStockholm, October 4 to 6, 2017
The final research event of the project Transpositions: Artistic Data Exploration.
Science and art are usually held distinct due to the different kinds of processes they employ and the character of the conclusions that they draw. However, what if artists were to extend scientific methodologies while radicalising their stance in post-conceptual art under the heading ‘artistic research’? How can scientific data be pushed to the limits of representation?
We think that science and art will still follow their own respective trajectories, yet they will start to ‘talk’ to each other in unexpected ways once their practices are enmeshed. After working with scientists and their data from fields as separate as computational neuroscience, quantum mechanics, cosmology, and molecular biology, and after preparing our artistic responses, we want to find out the character of our scientific-artistic conversations and how we can push the work even further.
Transpositions are artistic forms created from scientific data that respect the epistemic potential of their material under aesthetic conditions. Extending representational registers, transpositions propose a new aesthetic-epistemic logic of material difference rather than formal identity. Placing the focus on transpositional operators – their inner workings and as strict logic – suggests inconsistencies are not detrimental to knowledge but necessary stages in a game of heightened complexity.
The research event Transpositions: From science to art (and back) aims to provide an overview. It brings concepts, data, artworks, and people together for a three-day set of events spread across Stockholm. It offers numerous opportunities to engage with transpositions in exhibitions, installations, performances, presentations, and discussions.
Keynote lecture by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger.
With contributions by: Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback, Leif Dahlberg, Luc Derycke, Gerhard Eckel, Sabine Höhler, Victor Jaschke, Ioana Jucan, Tina O'Connell, Daniel Peltz, David Pirrò, Hanns Holger Rutz, Pelin Sahlén, Michael Schwab, Phoebe Stubbs, Nina Stuhldreher, Neal White and many more.
In cooperation with the Royal College of Music, the Royal Institute of Art, the Royal Institute of Technology, Färgfabriken, and Audiorama.
Funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF (PEEK, AR 257)

activities (collaborated)

Project, Principal Investigator: Hanns Holger Rutz, researcher(s): David Pirrò“Algorithms That Matter” (Almat) is a three-year project within the framework of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – PEEK AR 403-GBL – funded by the Austrian National Foundation for Research, Technology and Development (FTE) and by the State of Styria, hosted by the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.
Algorithms are no longer an abstract formalisation, the image of thought, immaterial, static and timeless. They emerge from artistic praxis and experimentation, become entangled in material processes that produce space and time.